About 650 people gathered in a club with 154 seats

Longtime head of Arbat Blues Club Alexander Tsarkov on security work specifics in the 90s, live blues broadcasts on television, and the best years spent in the company of blues musicians.

Crime

We never had run-ins with the criminal element. Strange as it sounds. There were no run-ins, and perhaps immodestly I'll say it was largely my doing. That is, there were no little bosses, no crime lords we answered to, because people would often ask us: "Who are you working for?" And we weren't working for anyone.

I didn't skimp on staff back then. We had a minimum of five people working on stage every day for decent wages.

So that's a sound engineer, stage technician, lighting operator, host, and a second sound engineer who worked the late-night concerts. It seems funny now, because nowadays one person does all those jobs, and often that person has rather questionable qualifications.

No fewer than four people were always in security. And the security was not under the head of security, but under the artistic director—that is, under me.

People made a mistake: "I've got nothing but karate experts in my security." If security starts using their martial arts knowledge, that's it—you need to replace that security team, starting with their supervisor.

In other words, they shouldn't do that. And that's how we worked for eight years without incident.

We didn't have bandits coming in demanding protection money. Or they'd throw money at us, or put a gun to your head. Both things actually happened in those days.

We tracked our audience very, very meticulously. Sometimes a Mercedes would pull up, and out would step some clearly big-shot businessman in a very expensive suit, with a very impressive woman. He'd say: "So, can we sit here?"

And we wisely replied: "Look, just come in, you don't need to buy tickets, just take a look, and if you like it, by all means stay, but it seems you've made a mistake." They walk in, see there isn't really a restaurant here, and they'd be better off at the Metelitsa, which is nearby anyway.

And so, but all of it was very diplomatic, very peaceful and friendly.

We also tried to steer clear of the artistic bohemia from Arbat, if you will—the kind with that characteristic port wine reek about them—not that we were turning people away, but we tried to give that scene a wide berth.

Well, of course, we had to interact with the official side of Arbat, meaning the Interior Ministry. We communicated on friendly terms, though I don't think it makes sense to go into details.

Peak Moments

First of all, the opening—January 30th, 1993. It's worth saying something else about this. So that it wouldn't all rest on me alone, we had three people in leadership. Well, me first, and then Marina Tsarkova, my wife, who acted as director.

And Yuri Korepanov, a kind of director-impresario. We all worked very successfully as this triumvirate of leaders, and from some point on we started staging major programs.

It was the opening of the season — that's around mid-September. And the closing of the season — that's the end of June. New Year's Eve was a must, and the club's birthday.

And we held what is now called a "battle"—for us it was a show: a guitarists' show, a vocalists' show, a harpists' show. We conducted polls: best vocalist, best female vocalist, best guitarist, and so on.

And based on the results of these polls, people were invited on stage, where they would play some piece in jam format.

Basically, the best vocalist was Zhenya Badanov, the best female vocalist Natasha Knyazhinskaya, the best guitarist Boris Bulkin. The best keyboardist, of course, Denis Mazhukov, the best drummer—I can't quite remember right now.

We held the first festival on the club's third anniversary, and about twenty bands participated. And we had to run the whole thing live. There were no digital consoles back then. So we doubled the lineup—all the musicians I'd already mentioned, plus the crew working the stage.

Five people — that was daily. Already nearly ten people worked on shows like that. It was genuine live sound. We minimized the soundcheck moment. The bands tuned up very quickly, everything live, everything sounded right, there were no awkward moments with sound issues, with things not being properly set up.

There were also guests who, in principle, didn't perform at the club, but could play one or two numbers in a different style.

At the festival there were probably around 650 people.

And the hall had 154 seats. And naturally, it was simply impossible to get through. And anyway, we later realized we shouldn't do it that way. We started holding these festivals over two days.

About 13–15 bands in one day — that's normal. Because when that festival happened on Friday, on Saturday the hall was just empty. Of course, everyone who needed to had already gone. But when the festival ran for two days, different bands didn't overlap, so people were happy to come.

Television

Back then there was "Fifth Channel" from St. Petersburg. Dibrov wasn't yet a host, but simply a channel manager. And the host was Maxim Vasilenko. And there was a program that appeared there, called "Live."

I helped with the concept back then. People called the program "Live with Max."

It played early in the morning live on air. Back then, I want to emphasize, it was genuinely live broadcast. Now… Well, yes. For those who don't know, there are no honest live broadcasts anymore. There's always at least some delay so they can cut something, edit something, and so on.

Back then it was honest live broadcasting. There were slip-ups…

"So listen, we have Alexei Belov and the band 'Udachnoe Priobretenie' with us today. And we've got a caller in the studio. So, who is this—Mikhail?" And Mikhail is talking nonsense. "Mikhail, what? Hold on, hold on, hold on, we seem to have some connection problems here, let me switch to another caller."

And we would air, for example, a big guitar show in the morning as a live broadcast on television, and the host would say: "And you'll only be able to hear such a concert live this evening at 7 p.m., coming to Arbat Blues Club, Filippovskiy 11."

The audience came with pleasure, listened, and of course that played a positive role too. I wouldn't call it advertising exactly—it's not quite that—but it was a certain kind of announcement nonetheless. I can say a big thank you now to everyone who was able to organize it properly and in a non-commercial way.

It was Lena Karpova, the musical editor of this program, who got it going. She was a difficult person, but absolutely the right one for the job. And she had very sound musical taste.

Non-blues bands performed there, and we simply couldn't invite them to our stage afterward. But if there was a program that somehow fit our stage, it would air in the morning live broadcast, and then perform on our stage in the evening.

Newcomers

Probably, it makes sense to say something about visiting bands, about collectives from outside Moscow. There was a really great group called Jam from Arзamas.

There was a very interesting group from St. Petersburg, led by Alexei Nekrasov, a blues musician who played harmonica.

There was a band called Blues Passengers from Novosibirsk. Their leader Mikhail Mishuris is now very well known in Moscow, and in Russia as a whole.

The band "Dikiy Myod" is a separate page too: Russian-language blues, a classic, you might say. From Donetsk. They performed with us many times, they're good friends of ours.

Along with them there was also a band from Mariupol called "Yuzhnyy Veter" [Southern Wind]. It ended its existence tragically, unfortunately.

It came about this way. I brought the band Dikiy Med to Moscow. I really wanted blues to sound not just in Russian. So we discussed it, and I asked if we could include some songs in English? The guys said yes. But for that purpose they brought in another musician, vocalist Sasha Krylov.

And he, essentially, sang blues in English, played guitar. A very good person, a good musician. And he formed his own band called "Southern Wind." He really wanted to break through to the top, in my view, went a bit in the wrong direction. He married an American woman, moved to America, spent a long time looking for work, naturally, as a blues musician. And he was simply stabbed to death, that's what happened.

The Best Years of Life

How did it all end? Well, not that it ended, really—it's a story, the country's story. The band I have now, they would gladly, if there were a way, they'd be happy to snap their fingers and bring it all back.

But that's no longer possible. We're living in a different country now, and that's the main thing. So why did we end up in this place by chance? In ninety-two, when we moved there, it didn't matter where you went—Babukinskaya or Arbatskaya. Back then people didn't really distinguish between those areas. But then, toward the end of the nineties, a battle for the center began. Well, let's say, some not very honest people showed up who gave other not very honest people quite substantial sums of money.

Marina Tsarkova, my wife, she died in a car accident 15 years ago. And so when I go to the cemetery, I pass by the grave of the person who actually received those very funds. Every time I pass by, I stop and think: "Here I am walking, and you're here—was it supposed to be this way?"

We almost won that battle back then.

And I'd already invested some money in advertising. It's a shame it all went to waste—it was a significant amount—but I had to leave.

At that time, in the year 2000, I thought there would be a break for, at most, half a year.

I was somehow convinced that I'd find it, any moment now, any moment now, any moment now, any moment now, any moment now everything would start up again. And it would have been ridiculously simple to restart. Down to the bar counter we took with us. That is, if there had been adequate premises and adequate conditions, all the people were right there, we would have just immediately resumed operations.

But unfortunately, by the time of the Millennium it was already a different country. A lot had already changed.

My wife, after we left, her phrase was, "those were the best years of my life," but then she just avoided that neighborhood.

Yes, that's true, those really were the best years of my life. Not because of finances — money had absolutely nothing to do with it.

It was simply very successful work that was successful not only for us, but for the audience too. That is, we saw those burning eyes. It was the best reward for us, for all of us.